Ubuntu on an older computer

[Jackal]

I added the 1600x1200 to the 24 depth when I did the lasst change and it still doesn't give me that option in the resolution drop down box. I'll go back and change the other depths also and see if that fixes it.

One more thing as long as I have the Linux experts helping me... How do I get the other buttons on my mouse (like the back button) to work- and how do I set the mouse for single click instead of double click?

You don't "real" men run in level 3. hehe j/k.

Depends on which DE you're running - but for GNome it's under System --> Pref --> Mouse.

[speedfrk]

You don't "real" men run in level 3. hehe j/k.

Depends on which DE you're running - but for GNome it's under System --> Pref --> Mouse.

I'm running Ubuntu 7.04 and Gnome. The mouse preferences don't have any options for either single click or anything but a standard 3 button mouse- at least the way it installed on my system. When I googled it, it seems other people had the same question, so at least I'm not alone in my ignorance

[Jackal]

ah, there is a mouse section in your xorg.conf, I don't know myself, if you edit it there, or where? We'll find out together .

[Spankin Partier]

Yes Jackal, again we'll return to the legendary xorg.conf file.

Have a look for a section that looks like this:

Section "InputDevice"

    Identifier  "Mouse1"
    Driver      "mouse"
    Option "Protocol"    "Auto" # Auto detect
    Option "Device"      "/dev/input/mouse0"
    Option "ZAxisMapping"  "4 5"

EndSection

The above is what I use for my standard 3 button Logitech Scroll mouse. Now depending on the type of mouse you have you may want to try changing this to one of these:

IntelliMouse Explorer 3.0

Section "InputDevice"
   Identifier  "Mouse1"
   Driver      "mouse"
   Option      "Protocol" "IMPS/2"
   Option      "Device" "/dev/input/mouse0"
   Option      "ZAxisMapping" "4 5 6 7"
EndSection

Logitech MX series mouse with up to 7 buttons

Section "InputDevice"
   Identifier     "Mouse1"
   Driver         "mouse"
   Option         "Protocol" "ExplorerPS/2"
   Option         "Device" "/dev/input/mouse0"
   Option         "Buttons" "7"
   Option         "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
   Option         "ButtonMapping" "1 2 3 6 7"
EndSection

or

Section "InputDevice"
   Identifier     "Mouse1"
   Driver         "mouse"
   Option         "Protocol" "Auto"
   Option         "Device"   "/dev/input/mouse0"
   Option         "Buttons"  "7"
   Option         "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
   Option         "ButtonMapping" "1 2 3 6 7"
EndSection

I highlighted the lines that are important in the above examples. You shouldn't need to alter the other lines as they should be fine.

Don't forget you'll need to restart the X server each time after you modify this file. Also make sure you've got that backup copy just in case you or I made any mistakes here.

If you have any problems, try posting what you originally had under the mouse section in your xorg.conf file, and also let us know what type of mouse you're using.

[Jackal]

Yes Jackal, again we'll return to the legendary xorg.conf file.

Has become one of my favorite, if not, at least most "visited" files .

[speedfrk]

Still no luck on the higher screen resolution... Any other ideas?

[supercat]

sorry to see speedfrk having issues with his resolution. I believe I am gonna put this project away for now, the K6 III 550 should be plenty fast enough to run Ubuntu, but I suspect weak video drivers may be part of the sluggishness. Next Linux project will be on a much beefier machine. Best of luck speedfrk, and thanks to all who helped me.

[Jackal]

Anytime SuperCat, look forward to the next one, I agree the 550 will do fine with Ubuntu.

[supercat]

Hey folks, just got back into the Linux mood lately. I wanted to update this thread. If you may recall one issue I had with an older computer running Ubuntu was the screen resolution. I was running it on a 15 inch screen, recently came across a really nice 17 inch crt with super nice Trinitron tube for less than $3, hooked it up to this computer with the Matrox G400 16 MB card. The res was stuck at 800x600 could not change no matter what. When I connected to this 17 inch, and asked to change res, low and behold there was 1024x768. What ? the OS would not even offer 1024x768 on the 15 inch, even though it could run that ? Too strange. But it looks great.

Now I just need a quicker browser, Firefox is a bit pokey. Or maybe I should tweek the
TCP/IP ? Just upgraded to Gusty Gibbon.

[Spankin Partier]

Those old CRT monitors don't communicate their capabilities to the computer. So Ubuntu would assume it was only a 800x600 since only a few 'high end' monitors of that era 1024x768. I had an old monitor that did 'support' that resolution, but only in interlaced mode. Feeding a interlaced signal at this resolution just wouldn't provide a picture no matter what the refresh rate setting was.

But if you ever tried to work on an interlaced monitor, you'd stick to 800x600 to use non-interlaced.

[supercat]

Hmmm, is that true ? then how can a windows machine see the ID string of a monitor and then select the optimum refresh rate ? Linux had to have seen something that told it the monitor was 15 inch, and if it saw it was a certain model that was in it's driver database it should have seen it could run 1024x768. This was a Dell Ultrascan 800HS, and it can run at that resolution for sure. It just seems odd that the user could not select the res, but rather the OS chose it. Jackal and I worked on this for a few days going back and forth with ideas, and I for one would never suspect the monitor would be the limiting factor. Thanks for your tips.

[Spankin Partier]

Most of the 17" and larger CRTs provided the ID string. But only some of the 15" monitors provided this. Hence the monitor should be ID as "Unknown Monitor". And then a "Safe" setting would have been chosen. Why Ubuntu doesn't let you override this like Windows does? Maybe since the GUI would 'die' and they would not have a way to reset this without the user going to the command line and fixing this manually.

When I first seen Win95, I was surprised that you couldn't drop to fix the GUI's settings (I later learned about F8 - command prompt trick but they still didn't give you a nice *.ini file to edit anymore). I just felt like playing with the video settings were like juggling hammers on a glass floor. Sooner or later you'll mess up and fall through.